As you might expect, we're on a lot of environmental NGO emailing lists. Typically, they just want you to type your name and join some sort of petition imploring politicians to vote for the environment, which we're always happy to do. But yesterday we got an e-mail from Bill McKibben and 350,org asking us to call on McCain and Obama to attend the next Conference of Parties in Poland in December -- where the international community will be talking about climate negotiations.

This is the sort of thing that makes us lose our patience with some enviros. First of all, the loser isn't going to want to go to this thing -- they are going be home, drunk and growing a beard. The winner isn't going to want to go because 1) they'll be busy putting their cabinet together, 2) they don't have any real authority to negotiate anything yet, and 3) the global economy is in the toilet and if the prez-elect is seen going to work on an environmental issue rather than trying to keep America from turning into Argentina, people might be upset.

Not to mention that the whole time frame created by the UN to have a new protocol signed in 2009 is inane if they truly wanted US involvement. Why have these vital negotiations go down right after our election (when the current administration has no incentive for long-term plans) and during the first year of a new presidency, during which time the new administration needs time to get its political appointees act together?

Yes, this is a nice idea, and the new agreement is probably the most important international negotiation of this century, but the candidates don't seem to particularly like each other much, so we don't see the loser wanting to be in the same room, let alone time zone as the winner.